


Tear It Down

by Fyre



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 07:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2339957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zola had left very specific orders about who was to be given control of the Asset. <br/>Many others didn’t understand why Pierce, who was so young and new to their organisation by comparison to the rest of them, was given priority. They clearly paid no attention to the films or the figure that the Asset had been modelled on.<br/>Alexander knew why he had been chosen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tear It Down

**Author's Note:**

> So I saw [this post](http://thunderboltsortofapenny.tumblr.com/post/93726812479/hey-so-i-have-a-question-you-may-or-may-not-be-able-to) and was not able to get it out of my head. My solution to this problem? FIC IT.

The handlers had changed. His location had changed.

The Asset woke in an unfamiliar chamber, laid out on an unfamiliar surface. 

The faces around him were not known to him. They gave their correct identification codes, so he remained still and compliant. If they had not provided the relevant codes, he would have wiped the area and returned to base. Capture by unknown enemies was not to be tolerated.

His ownership had been transferred, they informed him. His Russian masters had reassigned him to a new position.

This was protocol.

The asset was utilised where he was required.

They provided sustenance. Their machines resurrected muscles rendered useless by cryo-stasis. There was pain, naturally. The Asset lay silently on the bench assigned to him. His eyes found a crack in the ceiling and fixed on it. He made no sound. A weapon was not meant to make a sound.

People came. People went. 

It was as it always had been. 

The only difference he could discern was the use of English as the primary language of communication. His previous handlers spoke only in Russian, although they encouraged him to practise his English, to ensure he was capable of undercover operations in the West. 

Eighty-three hours and twenty-six minutes passed between his waking and the arrival of his new senior controller. The man was much the same as the previous senior controller. He wore a suit, a beard, and was grave-faced. He was accompanied by another man, this one younger, who drew the Asset’s eye.

The Asset had no long-term acquaintances, but something about the younger man seemed familiar. Familiar, but not… right. He was tall, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, and wearing a United States military uniform.

Familiar but wrong.

He turned his eyes front and focussed on nothing. 

“Stand up,” the Senior Controller said. “Two steps forwards.”

The Asset rose. His legs still shook beneath him, but he forced himself to stay upright. The wires and tubes being used to stimulate his body had been removed only an hour earlier. The marks were still visible in his skin. They would fade soon enough. 

“As you can see,” the Controller said to the younger man, “he is being prepped for operation.”

The younger man stepped forward, staring at him intently. “And the files are correct? He is- he was who they say?”

“We have no reason to doubt it.”

The fair younger man lifted his hand and caught the Asset’s chin, forcing him to turn his head, to look at him. “My god,” he murmured. He released the Asset’s chin and walked around him, surveying him, examining him. 

“What you expected, Alexander?”

The younger man smiled. “Even better.” One of his hands came to rest on the Asset’s left shoulder. The plates shifted beneath his palm in response to the heat of his skin. “Does he obey all orders?”

“Immediately and without question,” the Senior Controller replied. “He has been honed into the perfect weapon.”

The younger man stepped back in front of the Asset. He lifted his right hand and brushed his fair hair back from his brow in a gesture that the Asset recognised. The Asset’s eyes flicked up to the young man’s hair, then back to his face. Right, but wrong. Something was wrong.

The young man watched him intently. “What is your name?” he asked.

The Asset said nothing.

“Answer him,” the Senior Controller said.

“I have no name,” the Asset said.

“Who are your friends?”

The Asset kept his eyes fixed on the young man. Alexander. “I do not have friends.”

Alexander moved his tongue along his lower lip, his eyes examining every inch of the Asset’s face, as if committing it to memory. “Will you serve us well?” he asked. There was a tone in his voice that the Asset did not recognise. “Will you protect us?”

Protect.

Yes.

The Asset remembered protecting. This was correct. A fair-haired man in an army uniform. Someone he had protected before. He would protect him again.

“Yes.”

 

_________________________________________

 

The show reel was playing.

Alexander Pierce leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, and watched. The faces were familiar to him. He remembered the comics from his childhood. He remembered his father talking about the old show reels. He remembered the trashcan lid that he had painted up in red, white, and blue to be his shield.

He could not recall how many times he’d watched the footage in his youth, but since the Asset had come into their hands, he wanted to be sure he knew who he was looking at.

Captain America was projected onto the wall, laughing with another man.

There could be no denying it.

The Asset was Sergeant James Barnes, the former friend and ally of Captain America.

For years, he had idolised Captain America. The man was the ultimate example of the American ideal. 

Alexander had believed it, swallowed the propaganda, hook, line, and sinker, right up until he saw how the world really worked. A good man with a shield and smile wasn’t enough. It never was. It was all a lie to make the world believe it was free and safe, while governments waged war on each other with policies and embargoes and capitalism.

Captain America was dead.

The ideal that never worked had died in the war.

All that was left was a shadow of his friend who could undo the mistakes that Captain America had made, and set the world back on the right path. America itself was crumbling, its greatness corrupted from within. It needed a strong hand to guide it.

Alexander switched off the projector, and rose from his chair. The Asset had already carried out a number of missions on their orders. He was as effective as his fallen brother-at-arms. He had been trained and weaponised and perfected. 

He was what Captain America should have been, without the overzealous idealism.

And he was theirs.

No.

The Asset was his.

Zola had left very specific orders about who was to be given control of the Asset. 

Many of the others in their organisation didn’t understand why Pierce, who was so young and new to their organisation by comparison to the rest of them, was given priority. They clearly paid no attention to the films or the figure that the Asset had been modelled on.

Alexander knew why he had been chosen.

It wasn’t simply because he took the world as it was and dealt with it with the same ruthlessness. It was because of how he looked. Chance had given him similar features to the man he had worshipped as a child. Time allowed him to perfect them.

The Asset had been slavishly loyal to Captain America.

Now, by using a little part of that image, Alexander knew he could make the man loyal only to himself. Yes, the Asset belonged to HYDRA, but no other man would be able to claim ownership of him. He would make the Asset as loyal to him as he had ever been to the man who had been their icon.

He poured himself a drink and went to his desk, opening out the file they had received with the Asset. There were photographs of various stages of the Asset’s existence and details about the development of the soldier. 

Alexander sat down, and spread the photographs across the desk, gazing at them as he sipped his whisky. 

It was over three decades since the man had died, according to the military records held by the US army, but he had barely changed. The childish enthusiasm had been wiped from his eyes, but he was still recognisable. 

Alexander propped his chin on the knuckles of his left hand, studying the pictures.

If he still remembered Barnes, others might too. A mask might be necessary for operations within the United States. It wouldn’t do to have his identity made known. The Asset wouldn’t care, either way. He would do what he was told to do, wear what he was told to wear, kill who he was told to kill.

It was almost a pity that he had no autonomous thoughts. 

Alexander gathered the photographs back together and closed the file. The man was a weapon now, closed away until he was next needed. Nothing more. Bucky Barnes was as dead as Captain America. The Asset was all that was left in his place. A mindless weapon who obeyed him entirely.

Alexander leaned back in his chair and gazed out of the window. The whisky burned on his tongue, and he smiled.

 

_________________________________________________

 

The Asset woke again.

The Senior Controller was gone now. 

The younger man, Alexander, who titled himself Pierce remained. 

He was the Senior Controller now, he stated. He provided the correct code words. He smiled benignly and watched the Asset closely. He was still fair-haired and blue eyed and the Asset could remember a duty of obedience and protection. Even if the fair hair was threaded with silver. Even if the blue eyes were edged by lines of age.

The Asset understood.

He followed his instructions, obeyed his commands, and provided mission reports.

The Senior Controller liked details. He would sit, facing the Asset, and listen. He would ask about the injuries inflicted. He would request details of duration. His heart rate and breathing would quicken and he would smile. The Asset reported every part of it. It made no difference to him. 

On one occasion, there was a change in protocol.

The Asset infiltrated the house of the target when the target was entertaining. There were many people there, but the orders were clear. The target was to be terminated while the celebration was ongoing. 

The Asset was considering the variables when a telephone rang within the house. He had studied the building closely and could recall the location of the device. He ran lightly around the side of the building to slip through the window into the study, concealing himself in the shadows as the target entered.

The man was familiar.

He was the former Senior Controller.

He was larger now, sweating, swollen with weight and excess fluid. 

The thought brought the Asset up short for a split-second too long.

His chance was lost when the door of the room opened again. The former Senior Controller was talking into the telephone and motioned to the other man to come in. The Asset remained in the shadows, uncertain. The man at the door was Pierce. He was smiling, and he closed the door behind him. 

“Target acquired,” he murmured, and the Asset knew the words were meant for him.

“What?” the target said, covering the receiver with one hand.

The Asset moved forward from the shadows. 

The Senior Controller moved quickly for one of his size. He pulled a gun from his belt, and had it half-raised when the asset wrested it from his fingers. He slammed the man down on his back on the desk.

“You son of a bitch!” The target’s eyes were on Pierce. “You goddamned son of a bitch.”

“We need a new director for SHIELD,” Pierce said mildly. “We tried to persuade you to leave quietly. You wouldn’t. I’m sorry it had to come to this.” He approached the desk and stood at the Asset’s shoulder. “Terminate him with prejudice.”

The Asset closed his hands around the man’s head. The rotation required for a terminal injury was minimal. The bones cracked and the target’s body went limp. He withdrew his hands, stepping back, silently awaiting orders.

Pierce stepped around the desk and gazed down at the target.

“Good,” he said. His voice was satisfied and he was smiling. He raised his eyes to the Asset. “Now, you must hit me several times, and shoot me once. The wounds can’t be fatal, but we can’t have anyone suspecting me.”

The Asset looked at him. “I don’t hurt you. I protect you.”

For a moment, Pierce’s face showed emotions that the Asset could not comprehend, then his jaw tightened. He leaned across the desk and the back of his hand struck the Asset hard enough to split the inside of his cheek. “You do not question. You obey me.”

The Asset licked the blood from the inside of his cheek. 

“You will hit me several times,” Pierce said again, “and shoot me once. If I give you an order, you obey me. Do I make myself clear?”

The Asset nodded. “I will hit you and shoot you once. I obey you.”

Pierce nodded and stepped around the end of the desk. “Hit me.”

The Asset’s fingers twitched by his sides. He had a duty of protection to the fair-haired, blue-eyed man. It was… not right to strike at that which he protected. Pierce struck him again. A sign of disapproval. Punishment. It would continue if he did not obey. 

He obeyed.

 

___________________________________________________

 

The news had been confirmed.

Captain America wasn’t as dead as the world had believed.

Alexander stood in front of the screen, watching the footage: a figure encased in ice, carried from the hull of a ruined ship; medical teams working on the body as the ice melted; footage from camera phones and SHIELD security footage as he fled to Times Square.

He wasn’t surprised when the phone call came, a couple of hours later.

“About time, isn’t it, Nick?”

On the other end of the line, he heard Fury blow out an impatient breath. “We had to know he was fully cognizant before we told anyone, sir,” he said. “What good would it do telling the world if he came back as a vegetable?”

Alexander watched the footage replaying on the screen, the sound muted. “So he’s really back? And in SHIELD custody?”

“We’re not calling it custody,” Nick replied. “He’s got a lot to process, but yeah. He’s back.”

Alexander ran his thumb along the edge of his glass, watching the camera pull in tight on the Captain’s familiar face. He looked disorientated, but otherwise, the same. Much like the Asset, he had lost the bright-eyed enthusiasm and vigour. It was almost a shame that he was still the good Captain. Someone that lost could have been useful. 

“What have you got planned for the man?” he asked.

Nick was silent for a long while. “You got me,” he said. “Never expected to have the world’s first superhero show up on my watch.”

Alexander considered the screen pensively. 

A man like the Captain was strong, it was true, but now, he was a man who had lost everything. A man like that might be more fragile than he looked. A man like that could be pushed to breaking point.

And if not, there was a weapon in their arsenal, which could be put to an apt use.

“Best thing to do,” he said to Nick, “is to get the Captain back in the field. A man like that is used to combat. It’s what he was made for.”

“Yeah, like there’s any threats around that call for a super-soldier,” Nick snorted. “We’ll let him get up to speed. Can’t just throw him into Afghanistan without the background. See how he gets by on history 101 before we send him anywhere.”

“Good idea,” Alexander said. He paused the screen on the image of the half-frozen man. “I’ll let you get back to your guest. Let me know how phase two is getting on, when you have time.”

“Going to check on it in a few days time,” Nick confirmed. “Night.”

Alexander rose from his chair and went back to the desk.

His study was the only room in the house that was off-limits to Renata. She’d kept the rest of the place tidy and habitable after his wife passed, but even before Eleanor died, the study was always and only Alexander’s refuge.

It was secure, and as soon as the door was locked, he opened up his files on Captain America. He hardly needed to, knowing them as well as he did. He spread the images out, seeking out one of the few shots of Rogers and Barnes together.

There weren’t many, but one grainy shot showed them bent over a map together, talking.

If the Captain was still as strong as he had been, he could be a formidable adversary to HYDRA’s plans. He had been once before, and there was no question that he could be again. It was only a matter of time before he - and his overzealous sense of justice - started asking the wrong questions. 

This time, HYDRA had the advantage.

The Asset no longer questioned his orders. He had stopped asking questions the night he was ordered to strike and shoot Alexander. Alexander still bore the scar - a small indent in his left shoulder - as a testimony to the Asset’s obedience. The last fragment of Barnes, the impulse to protect his leader against orders, had been crushed that night. 

Now, if - no, when - he was sent to face Rogers, he would have no qualms about obeying his orders and terminating the man who he had once followed.

Alexander smiled, sliding the photos back together, and lining up the edges. 

There was still too much to do, before the time was right to deal the killing blow. 

Until then, he would watch the good Captain. 

Watch and see the embodiment of idealism realise just how little the world had changed and how futile his fight was. It would only be fair to see him at breaking point before unleashing the only man alive who could destroy him.


End file.
